The Trouble with Conspiracy Theories…
Radar Magazine has informed its readers, with some degree of sensational overkill, that over one-third of Americans believe “that the government conspired in, or had precise foreknowledge of, the 9/11 attacks.” I dare call it overkill because one never knows the precise language of the polls’ questions, their precise margins of error, or whether “foreknowledge” means only the knowledge that al Qaeda exists and wants to attack the United States. Whatever the case, though, this is a very bad sign.
Conspiracy theories about the so-called Doctors’ Plot or the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (to name but two) have been responsible, directly or indirectly, for more than their fair share of mayhem. Conspiracy theories about 9/11 may not cause deaths, but they tragically misdirect the anger of grieving families away from the real culprits. They also tragically misdirect the efforts of their champions from global problems with real solutions to imaginary problems that lead straight into a paralyzing wilderness of mirrors. G. K. Chesterton was on the right track when he defined madness as the exercise of “mental activity so as to reach mental helplessness.”
The media has proven itself willing and eager to participate in this national embarrassment. Articles about the 9/11 Truth “movement” have appeared in The New York Times, New York Magazine, and other respectable publications. It isn’t often that venerable public figures step in to debunk howling nonsense, but I think John McCain performed a great service by contributing his own words to Popular Mechanics‘s book Debunking 9/11 Myths. At this late hour, it doesn’t matter who believes what about the JFK assassination or the assault on the Branch Davidian compound. It does matter who stokes the flames of WTC paranoia smoldering, like some infernal Yule Log channel, in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world-not least in the United States. “Keeping the home fires burning” has never sounded so sinister.
Many intelligent commentators have offered cogent explanations for the “paranoid style.” I can’t say enough for Daniel Pipes’s book, published a few years before 9/11, on the subject. A common refrain is that people seek order, an “invisible hand,” where there is none, but this problematically assumes two things: that there is no order in the conventional narrative of Islamic terrorists attacking the U.S., and that conspiracy buffs really believe every word of what they say about that narrative.
I have a theory of my own, that these parallel narratives-remote-controlled jetliners, missiles smiting the Pentagon, jubilant Jews videotaping the wreckage for Mossad-offer the seductive consolation of heroism without risk. No less a personage than G.I. Joe once said, “Knowing is half the battle.” For the current generation of conspiracy-minded “investigators,” to consider the more lurid possibilities is to win the day. These YouTube gumshoes risk nothing by, for example, heckling the former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski at the 92nd Street Y. They do buy themselves plenty of cred on the Internet.
It’s understandable. What teenager hasn’t done the assigned reading of Nineteen Eighty-Four and imagined himself Winston Smith in the face of some monolithic, repressive Big Brother? (In his case, please substitute Principal Skinner.) The trouble isn’t the inconvenience, insult, and embarrassment the Truthers cause to figures like Brzezinski or Bill Clinton or anyone else. It’s the insult to those who pursue heroism with risk, those who fight not the conspiracy hiding in “plain sight” but the one that isn’t hiding at all. The 9/11 Truther may not believe every horror story, but he believes that every one is plausible enough to flog without shame. The soldier has to content himself with the one he knows is there. Conspiracy theorizing in this context is nothing less than an abdication of responsibility.
Consider the owl. Radar notes,
[b]ased on the book Them: Adventures With Extremists, by the British writer Jon Ronson, the movie will almost certainly include the stunt that lifted [conspiracy theorist Alex] Jones out of obscurity in 2000 and was, in some ways, a precursor to WAC actions: Carrying a video camera, he infiltrated the highly exclusive Bohemian Grove compound in Northern California, where business leaders and politicians, including several presidents, hold secretive retreats.
Alex Jones recorded participants in the Bohemian Grove retreat prancing like graying, paunchy fratboys around a giant stone owl, which prompted his comrades to find an occult owl hiding in the one-dollar bill-the worst place on earth for a symbol of Satanic evil to hide if it doesn’t want every fool with an Internet connection to find it. I took Occam’s razor to that bill like it was a scratch-off Lotto ticket, and what do you suppose I found? A whole nest of “owls,” i.e., random engraving patterns, along the sides and bottom of the design. From now on, the wise old owl will be my personal symbol of paranoid delusion run amok. What could be more offensive than a bunch of conspiracy fiends scrutinizing their petty cash while American servicemen scrutinize rifle scopes?
I’m not such a starry-eyed cheerleader that I don’t think there are plenty of soldiers who read this stuff in earnest. But they’ve earned their right to go a little crazy. As for the rest of us, we should think long and hard about whether we’re calling in the heavy guns on a mountain, a molehill, or just an entertaining mirage.
Stefan Beck is a writer living in Palo Alto, California. Mr. Beck has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and other publications. He also blogs for Commentary’s Horizon, The New Criterion‘s Armavirumque, and Jewcy‘s Cabal.
My take is that conspiracy theories offer the pleasures of not only being one of the few in the know, but also of cynicism and idealism. Cynicism for the obvious reason. Idealism, because there’s a resistance to believing that the world is such that bad things happen beyond human control. Precisely because the evils are a product of human conniving, they are also humanly solvable. Conspiracy theories happen when naive idealism confronts the ugly facts of life.
Congratulations for distinguishing 911truth from movements which hate Jews. Many 911truth critics lump them together.
Please note the Popular Mechanics efforts has been thoroughly exposed by David Ray Griffin’s “Debunking 911 Debunking”.
View a list of hundreds of highly credentialed professionals who say the official theory needs a real investigation. http://www.911blogg er.com/node/11094
Another place to find this list is patriotsquestion911.com
The 911truth movement is interesting because it includes liberals and conservatives. Paul Craig Roberts was previously deputy editorial page editor of the Wall St Journal. You might look up his recent work.
It’s a big country. There are paranoid people in it. The issue with 9/11 ,however, is the evidence.
Many years ago as I watched a black helicopter fly less than 100 yards away, after looking through seven power binoculars and not seeing any identification markers, I angrily turned to my then young son and said that while I did not believe the conspiracy theorists concerning these helicopters, I also did not like being lied to by the government claiming that they did not exist, when the proof was before our eyes and the sound of its rotors beating in our ears. A few months later government sources admitted that they were Black Hawk helicopters.
Government sources have also lied to us about the shootdown of TWA flight 800, giving an explanation that is laughable to anyone who knows anything about jet fuel and aeronautics.
Witnesses as well as seismographs indicate that there were two explosions at the Oklahoma City destruction of the federal building there: one was of the truck, what was the other? Government spokespeople were caught in several lies connected with this. Here we have evidence, both in the U.S. as well as found in Afghanistan that Al Qaida was also involved.
Now we come to 911. There are a lot of things that the government spokespeople claim about it that just don’t add up. Further there is evidence of governmental cover up that just fuels the conspiracy theorists, with the destruction of the evidence making it impossible to refute them. Like the black helicopter story at the beginning of this message, I find the conspiracy theorists hard to impossible to believe, but the story pushed by government spokespeople doesn’t fit the evidence either.
Documents found in Damascus show that Saddam Hussain worked with Al Qaida. There is a religious, Islamic world war that is over a millennium old. We have entered a new cold war with Russia, one started by Russia, with our government refusing to acknowledge it. China desires to drive us from the Pacific and is working towards that goal. The real threats are there, why does our government distract us with lies? Do not these lies fuel the conspiracy theorists?
I contend that people like you are just as dangerous as the conspiracy freaks. A healthy skepticism of the actions of and connected with our government and the ultra-elite members of international finance is actually mandated by our Founding Fathers. It’s no stretch to include the masters of industry and media in that skepticism. Such a skepticism would manifest itself by one becoming as informed as possible on many different controversial issues such as 9/11, the War on Terror, the Federal Reserve, various elite societies and groups, etc., and that means fully reviewing both sides of the story yourself. Not listening to what other deniers say about the “theories,” no, looking for yourself. And only then come to a conclusion. If you are too lazy or apathetic to research the issues, you’ll never know anything but what’s spoon-fed by the Mass Media and well, ignorance is bliss. If you don’t dare confront what is implied when you find evidences of malicious conspiracy, you’re simply a coward. If you’re too stupid to intelligently analyze information, you should have the self-awareness to know this and not form much of an opinion on anything.
To see the clear danger of those on both ends of the conspiracy spectrum, let’s look at extremes. Let’s say our population was dominated by a majority of people on either side–the conspiracy freaks who live in constant fear of reptilian shape-shifters and the Hollow Earth aliens, and the conspiracy deniers who live in a very comfortable cocoon of ignorance, carefully choosing what information to look at and whose first impulse is to contemptuously reject any and all conspiracies involving powerful entities such as governments, international elites, etc., despite their lack of a full understanding of the situations. The other variable in this analysis will be the reality of a major conspiracy of some kind or not.
In a society where no such conspiracy exists:
If it were dominated by conspiracy freaks, it would be more or less a madhouse where cultural progress would be seriously hindered by constant witch hunts and, out of fear, the stoppage of good and bad initiatives alike. Men could be rallied under all kinds of crazy causes. Under these conditions, however, those wanting to conspire against the people for their own selfish interests would be hard-pressed to do so. They’d need to get seriously creative (not that this would be a saving grace of this kind of society by any means–this society would be insane).
(Note that these “freaks” would have to be SERIOUSLY demented, as one can believe whatever he wants as far as conspiracies go and still function as a member of society. When his fears take over and he starts literally going crazy, he can be branded a conspiracy freak. In reality, most Hollow Earthers are pretty weird, but they still do jobs that you or I wouldn’t want, and as such are useful members of society.)
If it were dominated by conspiracy deniers, the society would operate just fine, however, such conspiracies could be easily formed by greedy men in positions of power as they would have nearly no risk of ever being discovered. I think we can all agree that bad men can become very powerful and that they have friends whose greed would supersede their conscience. They’d then have free reign to form all kinds of groups to forward their selfish ends. It’s a fair assumption that it would only be a matter of time before this subset of a conspiracy-free society full of deniers would turn into the subset below, a society full of deniers where such a conspiracy does exist.
In a society where such a conspiracy does exist:
If it were dominated by conspiracy freaks, the conspirators would have a hell of a time accomplishing anything. Cultural progress would be hindered as before, but the people would probably unite against their common enemy–the conspirators–which would give some sense of purpose and goals until the enemy is destroyed. Once the enemy was eliminated, however, we’d achieve the subset of a society full of freaks where no conspiracy exists.
If it were dominated by conspiracy deniers, there would be a comfortable social “veneer” maintained by the people to placate themselves. The conspirators would be thrilled as they would never be discovered and they could grow their power and influence by leaps and bounds with little to no true opposition. Whatever the conspirator’s ultimate goal, it’s safe to assume they would achieve it and the people may realize, when it’s too late, that they were wrong all along. Or they may never realize at all, adapting their perception of reality to fit their irrational urge to deny any wrongdoing.
So, as we can see, both extremes are pretty bad. If our planet didn’t contain bad men with bad objectives, it may not matter. But that’s not the reality. A society of conspiracy freaks may or may not be more uncomfortable than a society of deniers in the end if the conspirators’ plan is to create a horrible societal situation such as a fascist or Communist state.
A healthy medium, then, is rational, analytic skepticism of controversial areas, especially those that have great potential to affect our lives. A conspiracy of local fishermen in the San Francisco area to form a cartel to boost profits is probably not worth looking into, unless that would have some kind of significant effect on your life. A malignant conspiracy of the highest members of government, however, could profoundly affect your life (and many others’) and therefore merits review. The same goes for conspiracies of financial, industrial and media empires. The men at the tops of these empires have the ability to change millions of lives on a whim, for better or worse. A rational skeptic would not be illogically afraid of bogeymen, but would inform himself of all the facts presented, and would come to a conclusion without fear of discovery, bias or prejudice. When approached on a subject so reviewed, he could have an intelligent conversation as he will be informed and will also be open to new information and will revise his conclusions accordingly.
In a sense, it’s much like game theory. A pure strategy of “always deny” or “always accuse” is easily exploited by those in positions to do so, but there exists an optimal mixed strategy of denial and paranoia. In this case it’s an optimal mix of the denier’s hyperbolic version of “innocent until proven guilty” and the freak’s “they’re all out to get us.” Such a person could not be exploited by the demagogues that could run a society of freaks or the hidden conspirators that could run a society of deniers. Such a person would be the worst enemy of both.
My advice is to be brave enough to really look at both sides of the story in these controversial areas of “conspiracy theory,” because you don’t want to go through life a lazy, ignorant prole, rejecting everything you don’t want to confront and thereby opening the door for harmful conspiracies to be easily formed if they don’t already exist. And if they already do exist, you may find yourself waiting in line one day, waiting to be microchipped by the United States Police, explaining why the RFID chips are good because they help catch terrorists and win the 20-year-and-counting War on Terror.
I have found alternative perspectives to be essential in our quest for truth and the maintenance of the people’s sovereign power. Question authority at all times. Absolute power corrupts absolutely and there can be no doubt that our Executive Branch of government has lied to us and is a blatantly corrupt insider contract machine. Conspiracy is not a necessary description of these operatives. They are not clandestine, they operate out in the open. Read Michael C . Ruppert’s, “Crossing the Rubicon.” If and when our authorities take Ruppert’s court-ready case to a jury, when the evidence he presents is judged publicly, then we will know the truth of 9/11. Wake up everybody, we have been lied to , and we are still being lied to.
On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists boarded 4 airplanes headed from the east coast to the west coast. They carried knives or box cutters. At that time, such weapons were not prohibited on planes. They used the knives to hijack the planes. Each plane had at least one terrorist with flight training who piloted the plane. Three of the planes were crashed into buildings. The fourth plane crashed in a field after the passengers, realizing they were in the middle of a suicide mission, fought the terrorists.
That is the official story. In order to believe a 9/11 conspiracy, you have to believe that some portion of that narrative is impossible. What part? The only way a 9/11 conspiracy becomes probable is if you start with a assumption that government is evil and individuals are not. At that point, you start looking for answers to questions that don’t really exist.
Stefan-
An interesting piece. But as the author of the Radar story that launched this meditation, I must quibble with one assertion. You say:
Radar Magazine has informed its readers, with some degree of sensational overkill, that over one-third of Americans believe “that the government conspired in, or had precise foreknowledge of, the 9/11 attacks.” I dare call it overkill because one never knows the precise language of the polls’ questions.
We do, in fact, know the precise language. Radar asked the question as part of poll that we ran in our November issue, conducted by a highly respected polling firm. (Link below.) And the Scripps Howard poll that produced similar results, framed the question like this: “Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is “very likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them “because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.”
http://www.scrippsnews.com/911poll
http://www.radaronline.com/from-the-magazine/2007/10/america_poll_paris_hilton_george_bush_dick_cheney_1.php
There really was no sensationalizing — somewhere between a third and 40% Americans apparently do believe this. And among certain demographics — single men and minorities, for instance — the figure seems to be above 50%. Much could be said about why, but it’s false to say that we overplayed the data.
Jebediah Reed:
You said:
“There really was no sensationalizing — somewhere between a third and 40% Americans apparently do believe this.”
You don’t need statistics: just look at comments here under articles about 911…
The conspiracy theories illustrate just one particular way in which human reasoning is capable of jumping the track.
In the scientific discipline, one goes by the rule known as “Occam’s razor”: If several candidate theories appear capable of explaining the same set of facts, test the simplest hypothesis first.
A priori, the simplest hypothesis is just as likely to prove incorrect as the other ones, but if it is indeed incorrect it will likely take less time and less work to find out, so the attention can be given to the next hypothesis, and hopefully a step can be taken in the direction of discovering the truth.
Occam’s razor is just a wise precaution to increase the chances of approaching the truth as quickly as reasonably possible, trying to keep luck out of the equation. It does not guarantee that the truth will be found, it only minimizes the chances of getting lost on an unproductive track.
It seems that the most avid customers of conspiracy theories are animated by precisely the opposite principle: If several theories appear capable of explaining the same set of facts, adopt the most convoluted one, and reject all the others, which are presumably better feedstock for the idiots and the gullible…
It’s like claiming to possess superior reason by boasting the privilege of performing an end-run on reason itself. Hard to imagine a better way to get lost in some utopian landscape. Could this be the most comfortable refuge one can find when refusing to recognize that reality is overwhelming in one way or another?
Could the power of denial and the power of abstraction come from the same fundamental human capacity, just a tool to be used, with various degrees of productivity?
Slesinger – obvious case in point.
The problem is not that there are no conspiracies. There certainly are and have been — Communists, Nazis and Jihadis come to mind. Trying to tell the real ones from the tinfoil-hats-and-thorazine ones actually requires an ability and willingness to handle factual allegations logically and empirically.
I heard some people believe that Osama conspired with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to plan and finance the attacks. Is that a conspiracy theory? Do good writers care what words mean?
I’ve always thought that the best conspiracy theory involved the Middle East. It’s been a constant amazement that the benevolent leaders of the various countries would have established democracy, freedom, liberty, and prosperity beyond all measure except, at the very last minute, one of the zero Jews in their country stepped in and thwarted the government’s plan. The nonexistent Jew with absolutely zero power thwarted the mighty Arab empire. You don’t have to be John Lennon to Imagine.
It’s a tough call if you’re an Arab. Is the poverty, degradation, and outright misery the result of corrupt leaders or is it the SuperJew? A full investigation says it’s the SuperJew. Unfortunately for the Arabs, every Jew is a SuperJew and they’re everywhere and nowhere. When they’re not there they have the most power, except for those times where they’re there. Maybe it’s just me but I’m thinking that blaming the Jews and the United States for all your troubles isn’t the best plan…
Curly Smith points out another wonderful aspect of conspiracy theories: The conspirators are assumed to possess magical powers in general and in particular a supreme ability to coordinate their misdeeds with a precision beyond the reach of the rest of us. Oh Boy, I wish a was a conspirator!
Why must a person seeking credible answers for obvious questions be considered a “nut”. An obvious conspiracy occurred on 911 and there are many accusations but little evidence that supports the official version of events. The destruction of the Towers is not adequately,or I think, correctly explained by the 911 Commission. Building 7 is ignored altogether. The fact that Boston, New York (arguably the most important city in the world), Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, Washington D.C., nuclear power plants, dams, bridges, Norfolk Naval Base etc. were conveniently left unprotected by Norad whose primary duty is to protect our airspace on the day the terrorist chose to act, deserves questioning. Whole surveillance systems failed to surveil anything, and the laws of physics were held in abeyance on that particular day. We have video of alleged perpetrators getting lap dances but none of the Pentagon incident. The police and investigative forces of the country almost immediately traced the responsibility to ObL while not providing one iota of forensic evidence adequate for a court trial. It amazes me that there are some who ridicule those who only request answers to basic questions. Why is it nutty to question the official version? Why are academics and scientists respected in fields of study relevant to the phenomena of 911 so discounted? They advance peer reviewed research and facts, but merely being contrary to the official story makes them lunatics. When my questions are answered I will return to the sanity you think I have abandoned.
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Those are just the “comfortable” ones. There was the Business Plot in the ’30s — a coup planned by a group of right-wing moneyed folks who didn’t care for FDR and were perfectly happy to sweep aside our Constitution. And, as I pointed out in the article, there’s a very strong case to made that the series of apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999 that brought Putin into power and led him to relaunch the war in Chechnya were planned and perpetrated by the FSB. (David Satter, former Moscow bureau chief for the FT wrote a very persuasive book on the matter called Darkness at Dawn (Yale Press).)
The trick is both to be intellectually honest enough to recognize the uncomfortable ones and intellectually sober enough not to start seeing them where they don’t exist…
Hoo, boy. You really got an answer to your call for the 911 nutters, didn’t you?
The 911 conspiracy is at the very least a case of wallowing in complex stupidity, but may be more malign than that. But at least it serves as a catchbasin for emotional and intellectual cripples.
I think a lot of the desire to believe in conspiracy theories is a defense mechanism. In two of them, the JFK assassination and the 9/11 attack, we simply don’t want to believe that the actions of one or a few indidividuals can so dramatically impact our society. We don’t want to believe that Oswald acted alone, that he and he alone, was able to assassinate our President and possibly change the course of the country. We don’t want to believe that 19 hijackers of civilian airplanes could kill 3000 people and came very close to kill a whole bunch more (how many would have died if the towers had collapsed on impact?). We want to believe that the results stem from the actions of a very large, well funded, intimately connected cabal. Or, we have to realize that a few people in the right place, whether from luck or planning, can kill a lot of people. We have to realize that government is generally fairly ineffective before the fact but can respond effectively after the fact. We have to realize that our safety is our responsibility… and that’s a bit scary for a bunch of folks.
See also http://www.counterknowledge.com. There seems to be something of a movement against conspiracy loving fruitcakes.
nice blockbuster and spidey ads.
In order to believe the official conspiracy theory, you must believe that hijacked jet airliners can take leisurely hour-long tours of the northeast air corridor.
Deceased golfer Payne Stewart’s plane suffered rapid depressurization on takeoff. It was merely a Gulfstream IV, but was joined by fighter jets inside of 20 minutes.
To not cast an eye of suspicion towards the official 9/11 tale takes much effort. One has to ignore the fact that it is literally admitted that the US Gov’t lied us into Vietnam with the Tonkin incident. Vietnam saw over 58,000 US soldiers killed, so why blanche at an incident that killed under 3,000?
Supere Aude: “Dare to know.” In the age of the internet, it’s more like, “Choose to know,” since the information is all there, from scholarly sources:
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408